DuPage sheriff faces challenge from a deputy

John Biemer, Tribune staff reporterCHICAGO TRIBUNE

A longtime deputy in the DuPage County sheriff's office is calling for a showdown with his boss in the Republican primary election in March.

Timothy Connell, 47, announced Tuesday that he is taking on John Zaruba in the sheriff's first primary challenge since he was appointed to the office in 1997. Zaruba has since been elected twice--most recently with no opposition in 2002 in the primary or general election.

Connell, a Lisle resident, said that since he started working as a deputy sheriff in 1987, the office has "lost our vision." The department puts too little emphasis on training and new technology to keep up with the emerging challenges faced by the DuPage force, he said, which include gang crime and homeland security.

"We have a leadership in the sheriff's office more interested in protecting and serving the bureaucracy than in upholding the oath to protect and serve DuPage County families," Connell said, kicking off his campaign in his mother's Lisle back yard.

Calls to Zaruba seeking comment Tuesday were not returned.

Connell had been a detective investigating violent crimes for eight years--including the high-profile murder of a 14-month-old Bolingbrook girl who was shaken to death--but he said he was demoted recently to patrol car duty after he attended a Fraternal Order of Police gathering on his dinner break. But Connell said that reassignment likely was motivated by his impending run for sheriff.

The Republican primary has historically been the whole ballgame in DuPage County--no Democrat has won countywide office there since at least World War II.

Connell faces an uphill battle. He said he plans to run a grass-roots campaign against Zaruba, a Wheaton resident who started at the sheriff's office in 1974 and has rolled up $202,559 in available campaign funds, according to an Illinois Board of Elections disclosure at the end of June.

State Sen. Kirk Dillard (R-Hinsdale), the DuPage County GOP chairman, said he would support Zaruba in the March primary.

"Sheriff Zaruba is a career law enforcement professional with a college degree in law enforcement administration," he said. "DuPage County has one of the most professional sheriff's offices in Illinois, and I see no reason to not back the incumbent sheriff."

Dillard also suggested there were union "underpinnings" to Connell's candidacy. "I do not, as a taxpayer, want to turn over the keys of the sheriff's office to the union," he said.

Connell denied that was the case. "While I'm sure some of the union people are supporting me, the union has nothing to do with my candidacy," he said.

In recent years, the Metropolitan Alliance of Police has tried unsuccessfully to unionize the DuPage County sheriff's office.

Connell is president of the DuPage County FOP Lodge 109, which has 250 members. Zaruba was once president of the lodge as well. the DuPage lodge is a social and charitable group without collective bargaining power.